An Asteroid As Big As The World’s Tallest Building Will Pass Close To Earth On Halloween

Science An Asteroid As Big As The World’s Tallest Building Will Pass Close To Earth On Halloween Jamie Carter Senior Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. I inspire people to go stargazing, watch the Moon, enjoy the night sky Following New! Follow this author to stay notified about their latest stories. Got it! Oct 26, 2022, 08:00pm EDT | New! Click on the conversation bubble to join the conversation Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES – FEBRUARY 22: The Burj Kalifa Tower, the world’s tallest man-made .

. . [+] structure at 824.

55 meters (2625 feet) is seen on February 25, 2010 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images) Getty Images As asteroid as wide as Dubai’s Burj Kalifa skyscraper is tall will pass surprisingly close to Earth on November 1, 2022 just hours after Halloween. On November 1, 2002 RM4 will come too close to Earth for comfort.

The actual distance will be six times the Earth-Moon distance, which may not seem terribly close. After all, the Moon is on average 238,855 miles/384,400 kilometers from Earth, so 2002 our M4 will be about 1. 5 million miles/2.

4 million kilometers away at its closest point. That’s closer than it seems, particularly for an astroid as large as this one. You see, 2002 RM4 has been estimated by astronomers to be between 360-809 yards/330-740 meters wide.

So as it’s very largest it could be as wide as the world’s tallest building is tall. Astronomers at the Pan-STARRS 2 telescope in Haleakala, Hawaii on September 12, 2022, discovered 2022 RM4. It’s classed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory as Near Earth Object (NEO), an Apollo-type object and a potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA).

Apollo asteroids are a class of objects named for asteroid 1862 Apollo. Such asteroids have an orbit that is larger than Earth’s orbit around the Sun and their path crosses Earth’s path. 2002 RM4 orbits the Sun every 1,397 days and its path does occasionally cross Earth’s orbital path around the Sun.

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. . [+] Virtual Telescope Project in Italy.

Gianluca Masi/Virtual Telescope Project One of them will be the Virtual Telescope Project , a Rome-based organization run by astronomer Gianluca Masi that will share its observations live online. Its broadcast is scheduled for 17:00 UTC (13:00 EDT) on November 1, 2022. The moment of 2002 RM4’s closest approach is 18:32 UTC (14:38 EST).

What could NASA do if it was headed straight for Earth? Well, by lucky coincidence, 2002 RM4 is around about the same size as Didymos, the asteroid NASA successfully smashed into in late September 2022 during its landmark DART mission. NEO refers to asteroids and comets with orbits that bring them to within 120 million miles (195 million kilometers) of the Sun. Potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA) is a phrase used by astronomers to refer to a NEO with an orbit that can make close approaches to the Earth and is large enough to cause significant regional damage in the event of impact.

Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes. Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn . Check out my website or some of my other work here .

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